Evaluating Long-Term Outcomes and Personalized Treatment Strategies in Advanced Gastrointestinal Cancers

Panelists discuss how the long-term follow-up data from CheckMate649 are crucial for understanding the durability of nivolumab plus chemotherapy’s benefit in first-line advanced gastric cancers (GCs)/gastroesophageal junction cancers (GEJCs). The survival outcomes help validate this regimen’s position as a standard of care, particularly for patients with PD-L1 combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 5. Although the magnitude of benefit varies by PD-L1 expression, both overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) data inform personalized treatment decisions, with stronger evidence supporting immunotherapy use in higher PD-L1–expressing tumors while maintaining use across most patient subgroups.